I am having an issue with the relationship of Isabella and Claudio in this play. The situation Claudio is in, being put to death and all, you would think that Isabella would do almost anything to save him, but she accepts his fate because she is preoccupied with her own situation. To her, her chastity is more important than her brother. I don’t think she knows that once you are dead there is no coming back. Remaining pure is the top priority to Isabella and this makes me conflicted on that idea. Her virtue means everything to her and Claudio’s life means everything to him, one is not thinking of the other. I know that being a woman during this time you were a virgin, you got married, had children and lived for the rest of your days. Isabella to me is an independent female that can hold her own. She did when she approached Angelo in the garden in Act 2. Meeting together in the prison clears up the idea of how close they are to each other and it is not close at all. She makes the decision to let her brother die than to live in shame. I think she would live in more shame that knowing she let her brother die just to keep her name clean. Claudio on the other hand is afraid to die. “Death is a fearful thing/and shameful life a hateful” (3.1.131-132). It is weird that she places the loss of her virginity on the same level as being killed. When Claudio finishes speaking be turns and tells he that giving up her virtue would be a virtue in itself. He doesn’t care about her feelings on the situation. She basically says I give up on you, you will die tomorrow and I don’t have to think about this anymore, because we're done. As we read you can tell she loves her brother if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have made an effort to go see Angelo and beg for his life. Not see the other point of view and are not thinking clearly. The main issue of this play is how selfish the people are in this play. The self is greater than the whole. Claudio and Isabella are better off without one another. In this play, nothing is sacred. We see how our true selves come to light when we encounter certain situations. In addition, a relationship between siblings can become damaged and two people who are supposed to love one another turn against each other. That is the issue I have with these two “siblings”.
The relationship between Claudio and Isabella seems more like a friendship to me. It seems like this because they are really close and want nothing bad to happen to the other but when it comes down to it, they think of themselves. Come to think of it, everyone in this play is selfish. Angelo is, when he wouldn’t marry his fiancé when she lost half of her dowry in a ship accident. The Duke is, when he left Angelo in command because he hadn’t done his job correctly and wanted to see if it was just him or if everyone would behave in this fashion. Claudio shows how selfish he is when he asks Isabella to sleep with Angelo so that he doesn’t have to die. Isabella shows her selfishness when she isn’t willing to sleep with Angelo to save her brother.
ReplyDeleteI also think that when looking at characters in a story it is really easy to criticize them, but most of the time they are acting like we would if we were in the situation (except for Angelo, I would hope that no one would act like Angelo).